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Fall is coming, School is About to Open. It’s SLOW COOKER Season!!

We’ve had some glorious cooler weather here in Southern Ontario and being so busy trying to bring the garden in, freezing, canning I took the opportunity to warm up the slow cooker! What a delightful tool for the busy households that want to maintain a healthy diet.

When we got home from a business meeting yesterday, the wonderful fragrance of this hit us when we opened the door:

This was without a doubt the best most delicious tender beef stew possible. (no bias here, eh?) Of course we used my home made bread to sop it up.

Recipe (adjust volume to need and likes) I did for a hungry family of four as we love left over stew.

Ingredients:

5 medium sized potatoes, peeled and halved.

2 medium sized onions quartered

Carrots as you please, I had these lovelies fresh in my garden

Peas to please.

2 stalks of celery cut rough

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp ground thyme

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp garlic powder or fresh garlic chopped

1 bay leaf

1 cup of wine, I use rose’ or white as I find red too over powering

1/4 cup water and a heaping tbsp of corn starch.

2 cups of good quality beef broth, use low sodium or no salt as it’s always better to add your own salt to taste.

1 good pound of stewing beef.

Method:

Put the meat, celery and onions in the bottom of slow cooker. Always start a slow cook with potato and carrots on top so they don’t over cook on you. The liquid does not have to cover them! Add the carrots and potatoes. Add the liquid. Start the cook on high and turn to low when the liquid starts to bubble at side. Or, if you won’t be home, just start it on low. Now, just leave it alone. Let it cook all day, 6 to 10 hours. If you have one you can preset, set it for 8 hours and then let it go to ‘keep warm’

Now, it’s time to serve, boot heat up to high. Wait 10 minutes, mix the water and cornstarch. Carefully stir into the stew until you get the consistency you like. (some people don’t add any and like the watery broth, which is good too)

Remember, stew is what it means to you. You can add or take away whatever you like. Sometimes I add parsley chopped. But, you also don’t want to over power it or over crowd it. Also, don’t add things that will go mushy. Corn is always nice to add…. Have fun playing with it.

What else is nice about the slow cook is that you can get all the ingredients ready at night, toss it in (in the right order) in the morning, turn it on and supper is ready when you get home!!